Of Patriarchy, Gender, Paradox and Inference: A Feminist Import in Amma Darko’s Faceless Luke Okolo Abstract Ever since the publication of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792 and John Staurt Mill’s The Subjection of Women in 1869, about seven decades later on the English landscape, and Margaret Fuller’s Women in the Nineteenth Century in 1845 in America, feminism, in its variegated shapes, has gradually overtaken the literary landscape. From the first generation of African women writers till the present time, women have been agitating against the social and political structure that oppresses them. Recently, male writers have joined hands with their female counterparts in the campaign to advance the issue of women’s demand for equality of both male and female gender. In Faceless, Amma Darko gives makes some inferential statement about the plight of African women. She is most concerned with the challenges of the girl-child who eventually becomes a mother. Through the image of Fofo and Maa Tsuru, we see the female endangered specie. The novelist, as an African womanist, emphasises that various woes suffered by African women have their origin in the patriarchal tradition. She deploys her stylistic elements of gender identity, paradox, and symbol to make inferential statement about the future of African society. The novelist, through the use of characterisation and other literary devices, asserts that in spite of dehumanisation women and girls have continued to receive from the male gender, the future of Africa lies in harmonious and collaborative relationship of both sexes, both in domestic affair and in official engagements. The resolution of the novel suggests that the two genders complementarity is essential for maximum productivity and health of the family and the larger society. Keyword: patriarchy; gender; paradox; symbol; and inference Introduction Amma Darko has emerged a popular and impactful novelist of Ghanaian descent fit enough to wear the garbs of Ama Ata Aidoo, on the one hand as a feminist, and Ayi Kwei Armah, on another hand as a social novelist. Her two novels – Beyond the Horizon and Faceless – clearly announced her ability and creative literary mission on and for Africa. She is seen to be concerned about the plight of women of Africa, who are perceived to be yoked down by patriarchy and so doomed to stagnation and self-destruction on the one hand, and the imperialist racial discrimination on the other hand. In Africa, patriarchy has been identified as the underlying cause of various forms of deprivation, oppression and suppression suffered by women, and sometimes, children. In “Feminist Tendencies in West African Drama: An Analysis of Ama Ata Aidoo’s Anowa”, Monique Ekpong avers that patriarchy is an institutionalised problem. She quotes Kate Millet to have defined patriarchy as a “system of sexual relationship institutionalized in our social order whereby males rule females as a matter of birthright priority” (21). Ekpong attempts to explicate the concept further and states thus: The male nature has been used to connote virility, force, aggression, efficacy, intelligence and superiority; whereas the female nature has been used to symbolise weakness, dependence, passivity, docility, ineffectuality, ignorance and inferiority. Women biological identity has thus been used to determine their destiny, limit their physical and mental capabilities and marginalise them from social polity. The prejudice of male supremacy has thus been entrenched in the socialisation of both men and women through patriarchy and through a value system which ascribes inferiority to women and sustains that wrong idea through the notion of femininity (21-22). The above assertion by Ekpong identifies the features of patriarchy, which Darko, through her novels opposes. We shall return to this later in this paper. Gender as a term, in the recent past, referred to the anatomical feature of sex, which characterises a human being a male or female. To Abrams and Harpham, it is “the traits that are conceived to constitute what is masculine and what is feminine in temperament and behaviour” (122). In other words, there are certain social and cultural assumptions on how different genders conduct themselves; hence it is referred to as a social construct. This perception of genders and their traits are adjudged to favour men and so regarded as “pervasive patriarchal biases of our civilisation” (Abrams and Harpham 122). Recent studies indicate that the concept of gender has shifted away from the traditional anatomical designation to individual’s personal identification. In this case, the onus now lies on the individual to take up or identify oneself as belonging to a particular gender irrespective of sex. In other words, gender is self-determined, instead of a “social construct”; it is “individual or self construct”. It is in this perspective that Ontario Human Rights Commission explains gender identity as “a person’s sense of being a woman, a man, both, neither, or anywhere along the gender spectrum” (ohrc.on.ca/en/policy-preventing-dis…). In Africa, gender perception has always emphasised the anatomical cum social construct contrary to the idea of self-construct. It is in that light that this paper looks at gender and its relations; it is not to make a detailed clarification about gender perceptions. Paradox is both a figure of speech (figurative expression) and a literary technique. In Elements of Literature, Robert Anderson et al. explain that paradox is “an apparent contradiction that is actually true. A paradox may be a statement or a situation; as a statement it is a figure of speech” (1245). It is from this dual perception of statement and situation that the concept will be employed to interpret the creative mission of Darko in Faceless. It is the thesis of this paper that Amma Darko contrives complex paradoxes of gender in Faceless that reveal her statement about her angle or what many scholars call the strand of feminism she aligns with. This is the accommodationist school of African feminism. Of the school, Charles Nnolim states: These are all creative writers who are not really out to preach total equality with men. While they advocate some measure of equality, they concede a leadership role to the man and do not contest headship of the family. In their works, they stress as womanists do, the unity of man and woman in spite of bickering, misunderstandings, and the jostling for power. Reconciliation, not separation; convergence, not divergence; love, not hatred; affection, not mere passion; a pooling together of resources, not a scattering; a building together, not destruction of the latent love between the two sexes; an establishment of the family under patriarchy, not advocacy for a new arrangement (138). It thus implies that Amma Darko’s mission is not to destroy or uproot patriarchy, but to point out what should be taken care off to achieve a more peaceable society and robust economy. At the beginning, we are presented with the innocent street girl, Fofo, whose mother, MaaTsuru, is found to be helpless and incapable of habouring her in her own care. Her handicap is double: one, she cannot afford to feed her and her younger ones. Two, she is afraid that Poison the pimp is going to snatch Fofo from her as he has threatened to do. Fofo is unprotected against the powerful and the fearless pimp and street lord known as Poison and Macho his ally, who terrorise Sodom and Gomorrah enclave. He is called “Poison of the street” (3). The foregrounding of Chapter One is a clear indication the novelist is out to make a case between the two figures: Fofo and Poison – who represent the female and male genders; where one (feminine) is exposed to danger, fear, and shown to be innocent, deprived, oppressed, depressed, weak, helpless, fragile; and the other (masculine) is complex, trickery, powerful, bold, fearless, strong, imposing, threatening, and destructive. These opposing features of the female and male symbolised by Fofo and Poison dominate the entire work, except for Sylv Po and the staff of MUTE. Men, the patriarchal symbols, do not suffer any form of punishment from civil or customary authority. Men like Maa Tsuru’s father, Kwei, Kpakpo, Onko, Poison and Macho ought to be held responsible for their irresponsible acts of rape, robbery, deceit, child trafficking, conscription, deceit, and fornication, but nothing of the sort happens. Instead, women like Maa Tsuru, Baby T, and Fofo bear the yoke of their recklessness. This implies that their oppression is institutionalised. It is paradoxical, however, that the yoked women are rather unwilling to resist men. Likewise, men cannot resist women. Take for instance; Maa Tsuru readily opens her doors wide for any man that knocks on her door ranging from Kwei the father of Baby T, Fofo and the absconded two boys, and to Kpakpo the father of the two little toddlers. The men and woman find each other irresistible and return to their usual nuptial life after a respite of quarrel or regrets. The case is similar with Adede and Kabria in spite of their education. Adede continues to assert his superiority/masculine advantage against his wife. Kabria is fully aware of various ways Adede is maltreating her as a wife. For instance, he would always get up from the bed late with a newspaper in hand to read while his wife runs giddy doing domestic chores and getting their children ready for school with Creamy – the old Volkwagen car – that keeps disappointing her frequently. Attempts to elicit his attention while perusing a newspaper is responded to with hostility – “Kabria!...can we talk about this after work” (32) simply to evade the discussion. He always exhibits chauvinistic attitude to assert his position as a man and patriarch. For example, the commendation Adede gives her for her efforts at getting their children up to their responsibilities is demoralising her even the more: “Why is it that you and your children always turn this house into a concert hall every morning” (32). Kabria condones all those and remains faithful and hardworking in the interest of everyone. Maa Tsuru’s mother cursed her lover that impregnated her – “the young man responsible, that is Tsuru’s father, denied the pregnancy” (92). Tsuru and the larger society believe in literal meaning of the superstition peddled as being responsible for her woes. Like Naa Yomo attests, “It’s the curse” (91), but paradoxically. She knows in truth, Tsuru is not fated by any curse. The curse is a mere superstition that Tsuru has yielded to that prevails on her psyche that beclouds her reasoning, making her resign to the purported ill-fate. Naa Yomo makes this explicit to Kabria and Vikie. When the seed of a curse finds fertile ground in a human mind, it spreads with the destructive speed of a creeping plant. And while it does, it nurtures superstition, which in turn, eats into all reasoning abilities and the capability of facing responsibilities (91). Tsuru’s problem is paradox solution of which lies in the truth of the last clause. Two factors could be analytically seen interplay in her lot. Before the explication of the factors, it is important to emphasise at this point that the mission of Darko is to dismantle these barriers that militate not only against Tsuru, but have also become the primordial impediments for women of Africa. While Tsuru’s mother curses her lover and his generation; she never counted Tsuru as one of those. The woman curses her man and patriarchy, the institution that makes him errant, reckless and irresponsible lord, who declines his responsibility of offering her the needed support that initial union entails; she curses the system that excessively empowers men and disempowers women to miserable dependants; a system that makes one superior and renders the other inferior partner; the system that makes one a prey to the other, a system of abject inequality. In other words, Tsuru’s mother never cursed her but the patriarchal institution in its entirety. It is an intended blow on the system that has been destroying women. The paradox is that Tsuru instead of suffering the supposed curse of her mother against her father suffers the “curse of patriarchy”. This curse of patriarchy implies social realities of the patriarchal order. She suffers dual deficiencies: economic and psychosocial. All through the novel there is no expression suggesting Tsuru was ever engaged in any job or business, and she is not in any way educated. In respect of her economic life, the novelist states: Maa Tsuru had been without a man since Kwei disappeared from their lives. She wasn’t in any regular job either. Following the death of her aunt in whose kenkey business she was employed, she only contended herself with odd jobs now and then. She would work a few days at a kenkey house or do people’s washing for a fee. She never stay on one job for long because her two sons kept them going with the money and free fish they brought in daily from the seaside and the fish market. Fofo and Baby T were also bringing home money from the streets. It wasn’t living, but they were surviving fairly well (128-9). She has never striven to be economically independent. She has, instead, relied mainly on bits of earnings from the daily struggles of her children. She grows up and accepted the prevailing system where man is the producer and woman consumer; man is perceived as strong and woman weak; man is the giver and woman the receiver; man is independent and woman dependent. It is this social orientation that, in one perspective, afflicts Tsuru as she cannot fend for herself. So she depends on one individual or another who are usually men. She is, therefore, exposed and economically defenceless. She lacks the courage to stand on her feet and own her life. This accounts for her seclusion inside a one room apartment she inherited from the family line. She can neither feed herself nor her children. It is this economic weakness that culminates in her two girls – Baby T and Fofo – and the other two boys becoming street children to fend for themselves; the climax of which is murder of Baby T as a trafficked sex worker; while Fofo nearly lost her life disguised as a pick-pocket boy at the Agbogbloshie market. Another proof to that argument is the case of Odarley, a fellow street girl and friend of Fofo. According to Fofo, “Odarley’s mother sacks her like a fowl when she goes to see her. She says Odarley is a thief” (25). Then, we begin to think that Odarley’s mother is a widow or single parent, and so cannot take care of her. So she pushes her into the street to eke her living, and possibly, make some returns home. However, while in the care of MUTE, Fofo clarifies to Dina that Odarley did not just leave home for the street, but was forced out to the street by the mother. “She is a bad mother. She just didn’t want Odarley around after Odarley’s father left her for another woman and she too found another man” (103). So other indigent women submit to the same survival instinct. It is Tsuru’s indigence that is responsible for her promiscuous experiences with men. It is responsible for her willingness to accept any man that passes her way without proper scrutiny. She is too eager to go into the cover of a man, offer him unrestrained access into her womanhood, to devour and still abandon her at will. The prevailing political setting does not readily support vibrant men like Kwei economically. It supports only reputable men. Then, in her urgent quest to earn her living from men’s pockets, she remains vulnerable to the whims and caprices of parasitic and lazy paupers like Kpakpo, who prefer to run under the patronage of such repressed women. These men end up breeding children, the sure result of their unrestrained sexual escapades. The task of taking care of these children is then left to the woman alone, who can hardly take care of herself; hence her life is a miserable one. Here she is torn apart by the physical pains and worries of hunger and self care and psychological trauma about the fate of her four children – one of whom is already declared murdered by her own fault. It follows, therefore, that Tsuru grappling with a curse is a paradoxical situation. She suffers patriarchal curse – condemnation that stems from the social structure, and then, her descent into the woeful situation owing to her inability to shake off the feminine attitude. This, of course, is another pronounced campaign of Darko. A campaign to awaken the consciousness of women; to rid themselves of the old imposed self-identity and pick up a new identity whereby they can legitimately earn their living and take care of their children, with or without the support of a man. She emphasises this by creating Tsuru’s foil in Kabria who carries on and pushes through the challenges of her work at MUTE and family responsibility, which include taking care of her children’s education and contributing to the family financial upkeep, not relying on Adede her husband alone. With that, she maintains her dignity and independence, at least, to a certain degree. Another interesting paradox is Onko’s affliction. Onko is promiscuous. He “had made two sons from two different women, each of whom lived in their own respective family homes” (128). This suggests that he never married either of the two women. It is possible they are the likes of Tsuru. Onko defiles Baby T, a girl-child and relative. With his economic downturn, he holds the popular belief (superstition) that Tsuru is under the much talked generational curse, which definitely, she has transferred to her children. He suspects that he contracted the curse during defilement of Baby T. Onko is under a different spell. For male chauvinism that makes men in patriarchal societies to think of themselves as holy, sane, and innocent, Onko relies on the superstition of Tsuru as a cursed woman along with her offspring. This compounded his problem. The narrator informs us that after listening carefully to Onko’s narration of what Onko claimed he suspected to be the cause of his business woes which was that the girl he defiled, was the daughter of a cursed woman. The jujuman, the moment he became privy to this information, wasted no time at all in prescribing the requirement to diffuse what he immediately diagnosed to be mix up of Onko’s good blood with that of Baby T’s polluted and cursed blood (189). The climax of his strategy of getting Baby T’s pubic hair – one of the requirements needed – to exorcise him of the curse is the eventual murder of her. Tsuru’s curse, obviously, is not responsible for his woes. It is clear that Onko is being eaten up psychologically for raping the child and several other forms of sexual aberration. In other words, Onko is truly the accursed. He is weighed down by his libidinal flaw which makes him violate natural course; and as a result, he descended into lewd and immoral enchantment. This penchant for extra-marital sex is seen to be a huge burden, not only on Onko, but also on Kwei and Kpakpo, as the three who cannot guard their excessive libidinal affinity continue to suffer several afflictions in their businesses and jobs without remedy. One can infer, then, that the perceived freedom for men to “use and throw away” women at will contravenes natural order; and as a result, attracts curses from natural forces; or that such life makes them spend beyond their earnings as they try to please their mistresses. The Character Perspective and Inference In The Art of Compelling Fiction, Christopher Leland argues that “plot and language give fiction its form, much of its colour and heft… But characters are what give it a spirit” (165). It follows that character embodies the virility; the moving force; the actualizing enablement; the capacitating and enforcing power of realism and revolution. Character, unarguably, is a stylistic instrument of meaning, capable of complicating and explicating moral and psychological inferences of a literary work. Amma Darko’s Faceless appears to be a simple work judging by its narrative techniques, but is found to be a bit complex. The novel is made complex with stylistic deployment of juxtaposition, apposition, and symbolism as character techniques. It is by interpreting these techniques that we understand the depth of the novel and the novelist’s statement about the patriarchal Ghanaian society. Inference is “a conclusion that has been reached by way of evidence and reasoning” (https://www.mometrix.com/academy/inference). It is a deduction, conclusion, or judgement arrived at by evidential facts or reasoning. It is a product of a set of premises or propositions. Inferences to the characters in respect to their actions and situations that determine their actions will enable us understand the creative technique and the critical interpretation – the overall inference as intended by the novelist. The novelist experiments with juxtaposition and character mapping. Characters like Poison, Macho, and the Inspector are mere juxtaposition to Fofo, Odarley and NaaYomo respectively. The first set of characters is all male just like the second is all female. Poison, being the antagonist of the novel, is found to be really a poison that everyone wants to stay out of his way. He is daring and deadly both in action, word, and appearance and characteristic of a patriarchy. Macho, in the same way, is seen to be daring, oppressive, and an accomplice of Poison. The Inspector is depicted to be the oldest male in the work. He is complex and secretive, unwilling, unyielding, unconcerned, and hostile. The general atmosphere of his office signifies decay, anomie, hopelessness, depression, anarchy, and suffocation. His attitude and that of his workplace are demoralising and depressing. Contrary to these male characters are the female. Foremost among the female is Fofo who appears to be the youngest of all the characters. She is innocent, wise, smart, sincere, and courageous. Odarley is a friend of Fofo. Like her friend, she is courageous, sincere, smart, sensible, innocent, and willing to help. With this cursory character sketch, we can observe two significant features in the making of the characters: that the novelist makes some kind of gender-based character mapping. The mapping is oppositional – a juxtaposition of male characters against their female counterpart. The mapping, of course is no mere coincidence. It is a means of non-verbal submission – a non-linguistic assertion about the prevailing African society. Fofo, for instance, is a direct juxtaposition of Poison both in gender and character traits. She is oppressed, exploited, weak, traumatised, depressed, deprived, and of course, a wanderer. She is abandoned to face a hopeless and hostile society. Poison is her oppressor (and the oppressor of other street children) and a pimp who oppresses other females, both young and old who work under his control. In other words, Poison is the exploiter, the powerful who has right of expression. He is free to do whatever he likes, and is found to be powerful as to decide what children and women in the Sodom and Gomorrah enclave do. Similarly, Naa Yomo is juxtaposed to the Police Inspector. The old Naa Yomo is an embodiment of morality, caring about everyone around her. She is a source of hope and willing to cooperate with people of goodwill. She is eager to play her role as a matriarch. The Police Inspector is unlike her. He is unconcerned about social morality and security despite his primary responsibility of social security. He has lost good sense of morality and has little or no concern about the future of the society. He is unyielding and unwilling to cooperate with staff of MUTE on a matter he is supposed to champion. As a father and protector, he failed in his duty as police and patriarch. He is more or less, a misfit. Apposition of characters is concerned with characters that are alike, either in their gender identification or character or both. Darko has two classes of character: the uneducated and the educated. The uneducated are further divided into two based on gender – male and female. Each group shares a number of qualities and experiences. In other words, members of each set are related by some common factors – they share similar bonding. The bonding they share is what makes them appositional. In that case, each group is in opposition to the other, and so they run like two parallel lines. Fofo, Tsuru, Odarley, Baby T, and Maami Broni constitute the female set of the first class. They are females who find themselves helplessly engaged in certain self- demeaning lifestyle to survive economically. The worst hit are the innocent girl-children – Fofo and Odarley who are chased out and abandoned on the hostile streets to fend for themselves – and Tsuru who has to accept Kpakpo and Kwei out of the yearning for a man’s care and protection, yet these still elude her and left her more broken than ever. On the male side, Poison, Macho, Kpakpo, Kwei, and Onko are all predatory. They scavenge on the weak female, young and adult. They depend on their physical strength and are aided by social custom. It is the advantage that empowers Poison to be the pimp of Maami Broni, who is older than him, and dictates what she does or does not. He hunts girls and traffics them. For instance, in an interview session with Sylv Po on the death of Baby T and murderous beating given to Fofo, he admits: I did beat the girl up, but I did not kill her…why would I kill a girl who was making lots of money for me? Maami Broni would bear me out. You can talk to her if you like. I did beat her up but I left her crying, not dead… (173). It is this fear of being murdered that makes Fofo disguise and take up the identity of a boy (male gender), signifying that violence could force one make a far reaching decision including gender identification. However, that is outside the focus of this study. The educated class constitutes both male and female. This is a class of intellectuals who are in search for a prosperous and harmonious society where every individual is protected and treated like human. They seek a society where the gap between the two sexes is closed and the gulf between the classes bridged. No gender would take undue advantage of the other, rather each working with his or her ability for the peace and progress of all sexes. This class is constituted by the Harvest FM presenter of Good Morning Ghana (GMG), Sylv Po and the staff of MUTE – Dina, Kabria, Vickie, and Aggie. The five are educated and find a civil way of solving every problem. For example, in spite of provocative attitude of Adede, Kabria condones his inadequacies. She makes necessary physical and monetary contributions for smooth running of the family. The conflict and complications in the novel find resolution through collaborative efforts of the five characters. Symbol as an Aspect of Meaning The Aspect of meaning that Darko deployed is the use of symbols – signifiers. A symbol is “a person, place, thing, or event that stands both for itself and for something beyond itself” (Anderson et al 1249). This view is echoed by Abrams and Harpham who submit that a symbol “is applied to a word or phrase that signifies an object or event which in its turn signifies something, or suggests a range of references, beyond itself” (394). A number of characters and incidents in the novel are symbolic. This implies that they have signification beyond the literal; that is, they suggest a range of references beyond the literal expression. The unravelling of meaning of the symbols could be referred to as inference. From the beginning of the novel, we see Fofo (we should take cognizance of analysis of the characters thus far), an innocent girl exposed to the hostile environment and hungry, too. She is dreaming for a better future. This dream of is thwarted by Poison who pounces on her to satisfy his sexual urge, and perhaps, to conscript her into his brothel for pecuniary benefit. This scenario is symbolic of the status of women in the patriarchal setting. Similar to that is Onko’s rape of Baby T that culminated in her conscription and eventual murder. With that incident, her dream veers around and her mother is thrown into psychological trauma. Again, a closer analysis of the plight of Tsuru suggests that all the men who at one time or another had intercourse with her are, ab initio, fully aware of the superstition surrounding her and her children, yet decided to go ahead with her. None did that under any spell. None is cajoled in any way. None is completely ignorant before the love affair. It is, however, worthy of note that old NaaYomo is a symbol, so also Adede and the Police Inspector. All the incidents and persons cited are symbolic. They symboylise a number the nature of man and woman: opposite genders and apposite in meaning. We can, therefore, infer that Fofo’s encounter with Poison imply that male gender and patriarchy are responsible for the perceived weakness of feminine gender in Africa. It shows that women of Africa have always had gigantic dreams; but they are ambushed by the patriarchal structure that suppress and deny women the opportunity to pursue their dreams. They are coerced into accepting slavish and susceptible lifestyle, and so are hoodwinked into accepting “second class” position as nature-imposed. Baby T’s encounter with Onko could suggest: one, women are susceptible to men, because men are economically favoured. We adduce this meaning when we consider the circumstance that makes him have access to Baby T in his room. But again, that incident is a derogatory one, inferring that men are, in actuality, psychologically weak and emotionally unstable. We find it derogatory when we ask the question, “What is the essence of Onko taking advantage of a minor?” This is a girl who calls him Uncle indicating blood relationship and trust, too. His lust, libidinal excesses, pushes him to descend from his exalted position as a progressive and economically buoyant welder to bankruptcy. Darko writes: In seeking the jujuman’s intervention to revamp his business, Onko sought an impracticable solution to a practicable problem…after listening carefully to Onko’s narration of what Onko claimed he suspected to be the cause of his business woes which was that the girl he defiled, was the daughter the daughter of a cursed woman. The jujuman, the moment he became privy to this information, wasted no time at all in prescribing the requirements to diffuse what he immediately diagnosed to be a mix up of Onko’s good blood with that of Baby T’s polluted and cursed blood (184-5) He goes ahead to prescribe “a strand of Baby T’s pubic hair” believing it will be impossible for him to obtain. His handsome pay paves way for him as poison orders Baby T yield to his demand for sex, in a bid to get a strand of her pubic hair for the jujuman to exorcise him of the curse. Unexpectedly to both, Poison bullies Baby T to death, but the jujuman’s art is impotent to Onko’s “curse”. It is a pointer that lust, is often time, responsible for failure of men. The case of Tsuru suggests that she is under the psychological influence of a mere superstition. The superstition reduces her dignity of self. Kpakpo explores that avenue to exploit her. “You know how everyone around here feels about the curse on your head, don’t you?...my family is no exception. They will not take kindly to our relationship. So I will be visiting you” (129). She feels lonely, dejected, and unhappy. Coupled with the fact that she is idle and in abject poverty, she takes in any man that presents himself to her. More importantly, it is a re-echoing of the belief that women are seen as object for pleasure. They are gone back to whenever there is need again to quell the libidinal fire. Naa Yomo is a link between old and new generations. She is a matriarch symbolic of motherhood, which typifies care and resilience; while the Inspector, a patriarch suggests care free, unconcerned, selfishness, and anomie that result from patriarchy. Conclusion Amma Darko’s vision could be inferred from the collaboration, the agreement between MUTE constituted of women and Sylv Po and his producer to unravel the circumstances surrounding the death of Baby T, Fofo’s life, and the causes of the scourge of street children very common in Ghana. Everyone involved is seen and respected as partner with others, sharing the same goal and vision of discovering the cause and devising a means of ending streetism in Ghana. Everyone deploys their strength for the success of the task. The success, speedy and seamless achievement of their goal is a portrayal of the belief that the family and the larger society will be a better and progressive one if women, individually and corporately can collaborate with men, not as rivals, but as partners and pursue common goals. However, the novel still suggests that for this to be possible, education of both sexes is essentially unavoidable. Works Cited Abrams, M. H. A Glossary of Literary Terms.Wadsworth, 2012. Anderson, Robert et al. Elements of Literature: Sixth Course. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1989. Asika, Ikechukwu Emmanuel. Literary Appreciation: A Practical Demonstration. SCOA Heritage, 2019. Darko, Amma. Faceless. Sub-Saharan, 2003. Ekpong, Monique. “Feminist tendencies in West African Drama: An Analysis of Ama Ata Aidoo’s Anowa”Current Trends in Literature and Language Studies in West Africa. Emenyonu, Ernest N. and Charles E. Nnolim (Eds.). Kraft Books, 1994. Leland, Christopher. The Art of Compelling Fiction. 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